Cohousing: Part 3

In her final piece of the series, guest poster Biddy Livesey – housing policy analyst, researcher, and future resident of Cohaus – considers how cohousing is supported, and the specific planning challenge for an innovative collective housing development. This article was originally published on Greater Auckland, and is reproduced with permission.

Within the Auckland Unitary Plan, collective housing is enabled through the Integrated Residential Development rule, which provides for development of an unlimited number of units, and supporting communal facilities, on a site larger than 2000m2. Collective housing development is also enabled on Māori land. The concept of an Integrated Residential Development, which is provided for in all residential zones in the Auckland Unitary Plan, was developed in part response to questions about how the draft plan would provide for retirement villages. When considering the effects of development, a retirement village is a useful comparator to a cohousing development. As Greater Auckland blog has explored, both typologies offer residential units in a medium-density built form, on-site amenities, reduced car parking and facilities for common use.

We believe that all kinds of collective housing development need to be encouraged to enable Auckland Council to meet the strategic directions for the city.

Planning for Cohaus

Our proposal for a cohousing development is well-supported by both the Auckland Plan and the Auckland Unitary Plan. The Cohaus site is located at 11 Surrey Crescent, in Grey Lynn. The site is served by frequent bus services to the city centre, and on a future protected cycleway which has already been funded. Cohaus is a short walk to the Grey Lynn Park. We are just steps away from the Grey Lynn shops, and across the road from Grey Lynn School. Our cohousing development will make efficient use of residential land in a community which is well-served by existing infrastructure.

Cohaus and the challenge of ‘character’

In developing our resource consent, we have worked with planners at Auckland Council through pre-application meetings, and have made changes to the design to accommodate their requests. Throughout the process, the challenge to our cohousing development has not been that we are increasing the density of residential units, but the fact that our site is located on the edge of the Single House Zone and covered by a Special Character overlay. Our design does not meet the maximum building height standard set by this zone and overlay.

Location of the site in relation to the Special Character overlay in the western inner suburbs.

In our opinion, assessing the physical effects of our infringement of the maximum height standard is a simple matter. The Single House Zone is a zone applied block-by-block to reflect existing built form. Surrey Crescent forms the edge of the Single House Zone on the Grey Lynn ridge. Within the Single House Zone and Special Character Overlay, buildings with pitched roofs are permitted to rise to a height of 9 metres.

Our cohousing development includes a 10.5 metre building on Surrey Crescent. Common concerns about height infringements relate to the potential for overshadowing, and loss of privacy for neighbours. In our proposal, the additional metre-and-a-half of building height is located on the Surrey Crescent edge of the site, where there are no adjacent neighbours. Our modelling shows that the additional building height will not overshadow neighbours.

Architectural renderings of Cohaus Surrey Crescent building looking south along Surrey Crescent (left) and north down Browning Street (right).

Judging whether our ‘too tall’ design fits with the ‘special character’ of the Grey Lynn area, is a more complicated issue. Many of the houses in the surrounding streets were built in the late nineteenth century. These houses were built quickly with standard layouts, and decorated with mass-produced wooden ornaments and stained glass windows. Today, the side streets of Grey Lynn are lined with these homes. But the main thoroughfares, such as Surrey Crescent and Richmond Road, have changed.

Surrey Crescent is a wide road with a range of activities and built forms. Opposite the Cohaus site is a school, and to the west are a series of four- and five-storey apartment buildings. The Cohaus site is large enough to locate our three-storey building on Surrey Crescent, helping to frame the main thoroughfare of Grey Lynn without, in our opinion, negatively affecting the distinct special character of existing houses on the adjacent side streets.

Area surrounding Cohaus, clockwise from top left: Four-storey apartment buildings west of the site on Surrey Crescent; houses not within the Special Character overlay, south of the site on Surrey Crescent; houses within the Special Character overlay north of the site on Browning Street; Grey Lynn School directly across Surrey Crescent from the site, pictured in 2015 prior to redevelopment (Google Street View).

This decision about height is critical to our cohousing development. Allowing an additional 1.5 metres of height allows us to build a third storey, comprising four units, on the Surrey Crescent building. If this third storey cannot be built, four households will not be able to live at Cohaus. Affordability will also decrease for other households because the land will be used less efficiently, and the cost of the land will be shared among fewer apartments. As a not-for-profit developer, we do not have a profit margin to trim. All costs are passed to our collective. Our calculations indicate that if the third storey on the Surrey Crescent building can’t be built, the costs of the development will increase to the point where most of our households will not be able to afford to purchase their apartments.

Our cohousing development illustrates the tension within the Auckland Unitary Plan between the need to increase the supply of houses in Auckland, and efforts to preserve the ‘special character’ of neighbourhoods settled early in the history of colonial Auckland. When this area of Grey Lynn was originally subdivided, the villas provided affordable homes for young couples working as clerks and office workers, teachers or artisans. In 2018, it is critical that efforts to preserve the character of inner city suburbs do not prevent innovative developments which aim to provide affordable homes to Aucklanders, young and old. We look forward to inviting you to visit us at Cohaus!

With thanks to www.greaterauckland.org.nz.

Have your say

What do you think? Would you want to live in a cohousing community? What would Wellington’s challenges be? Comment below or send us a tweet.